Tuesday Morning Ramblings

Right before I left the house with the kids this morning, I told my MIL, “It’s going to snow, because I decided to wear my favorite flats instead of my boots.”

By the time I backed out of the garage, there were fat flakes sailing through the air and a nice fluffy layer on the ground.  It must have started the moment I slipped on my shoes.

So I turned on the windshield wipers and said, “I’m going to win the lottery, because all that money would be a terrible inconvenience.”

I’ll let you know how that goes.

The kids understood my need for radio silence during the snowy drive to school, and helped out by singing the first two lines—and only the first two, over and over—of their current favorite songs, at the top of their lungs.  When I protested, Jane explained that she was just showing me which songs she was planning to earn with her good homework behavior* this week.

I didn’t tell her that hearing the first line of the homemade KidzBop version of “Wrecking Ball” wasn’t doing anything for my level of parental follow-through.**  Maybe I should have . . .

Sunny gave me an extra hug when I dropped her off—I suspect that she wanted to see me skate around the car again like a moose on ice, but the reward was worth it.

Had a close call on the way to work with a minivan driver, who thought I should have gone through the yellowred light at a slick intersection, despite the two cars that had already stopped in front of me.

Honking while sitting at a red light because the driver in front of you won’t try to defy the laws of physics, not to mention the traffic laws, at your psychic command doesn’t just display your self-righteous impatience—it also makes you a jerk.

Actually, honking at any red light makes you a jerk.  Turning on red is allowed in most of the U.S., but it isn’t required, and we aren’t allowed to decide when the driver in front of us can safely turn.  If we believe that we are allowed—nay, required—to make these judgment calls, we should keep in mind that our line of sight is impeded by distance, other vehicles, and by having our heads lodged where the sun can’t get to our corneas.  It’s physically and karmically safer to wait for the green light.

One of the tiny, drive-through coffee houses that punctuate my morning commute had a new sign up this morning:  New Soup and Pumpkin Flavors!

I thought that a tomato-pumpkin parmesan latte didn’t sound so bad—sort of like bisque with a caffeinated kick to it.  But I expect the pumpkin chicken noodle mocha wouldn’t go down so easily—up, maybe.

When I arrived at the library at quarter to eight, I had a breakfast bar, cracked open the first diet Pepsi of the day, and decided to reward myself for hopping on the exercise bike this morning by having a grilled chicken salad at my favorite lunch place.

At the writing of this paragraph some hours later, I have decided that “reward” and “salad” do not belong in the same sentence.  “Burger and bacon cheese fries,” on the other hand, might.***

I can always hire a personal trainer and chef—and a chauffeur and homework tutor—once the lottery thing pays out, right?

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* My library subscribes to Freegal™, which allows our cardholders—including those of us with staff cards—to download three free songs a week.  Since Jane has a card from a different city, I told her that she could earn my songs throughout the week, if she did her homework without complaint and to the teachers’ standards—or mine, if her teachers don’t make their directions clear to me.  If Freegal™ doesn’t have a song she wants, Jane can save up three free songs for one that I’ll buy for her.  I get song veto rights, because I’m not stupid.  We made this pact after her report card arrived Friday—it told us in no uncertain terms that we have a bright kid with a bad homework attitude, which wasn’t exactly a surprise.  We’ve tried everything else to get her to understand why homework is important and thought we’d might as well move on the bribery.

** Nor is the realization that I’ve been humming that one line to myself all #%$&ing morning.

***It says a lot about my nutritional attitude that I already had image of cheese fries in my media file.  But I’m not inclined to listen today.

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Random Thursday: It’s all Relative

Been an odd week at Chez Wesson, all told—though I’m not telling all of it.

Yet.

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Let’s Give Mommy an Earmworm:  Sunny

Singing this under my breath all day wouldn’t be so bad, if I worked in Youth Services.

I don’t.

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Invisible Fairy Gardens

When my folks arrived to take the kids to Six Flags last month, Mom showed me photos of the old herb garden.  What was once a clump of wildly overgrown, half-buried half-barrels is now an area of raised beds and neat plantings—though I noticed St. Francis of Assisi is still being strangled by the mint.*

To the right of that longsuffering, if fresh-smelling, saint is Mom’s fairy garden, of which she is very proud.

It features an upright log with a driftwoody sort of top and a small door at the bottom.  There is a pathway.  There are toadstools.  There is patio furniture. There are gnomes.

It is excellent.

It is also invisible, because I couldn’t pull the photos off her camera for some reason and decided just last night, that I could use them for today’s post.   I called Dad, explained how to send an attachment, and after a while, received an iPhoto file that he thought might actually be all the photos on Mom’s camera and which completely baffled my laptop when I tried to get it open, even with the recommended software.

My husband suggested that Watson might be able to open it on her iPad, so I forwarded her the file and sent her a head-up text before remembering that she has trouble getting a connection on her Virginia-based phone, especially when she’s in my MIL’s guest room (ie, the back basement).

I could  have gone down to see her, but I’m essentially lazy and a few minutes later, my MIL came up for a book she’d left, anyway, so I asked her to ask Watson to look at her e-mail, but only if Watson wasn’t asleep already because it really wasn’t an emergency.

Apparently, this translated into intercepting Watson on the way to the bathroom and telling her I needed her right away.

So Watson and I had a very quick conversation which was half apology on my part and half yes, okay, hurry up and tell me what you need, please on hers.  She told me to forward it to another e-mail address and disappeared.

Fifteen minutes later or so, I received an e-mail that said she couldn’t get it open, either.

So, I sent Dad an e-mail thanking him for the effort along with another stab at explaining how to attach a photo using an e-mail system with which I wasn’t familiar on an operating system I don’t use, because I’m a librarian and have had some experience in explanations of this kind.**

The explanations aren’t always successful, b either way, at the posting of this, he hasn’t yet replied.  You’d think he had a life that didn’t revolve around me, or something . . .

And that’s why there aren’t any images of Mom’s fantastic fairy garden today—but as the entire family was involved, barring the kids and the cat, I thought I’d mention it, anyway.

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Let’s Give Mommy an Earmworm:  Janie

She has it memorized.

And she’s sung it so often that I am psychologically conditioned to respond with the next line whenever I hear:

“Da da DA dada, ChickEN!”

And everyone in the family knows this.

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Watsonisms, or Yeah, that one’s my fault

My sister-in-law, aka Watson, has brought more to our lives than a truly massive DVD collection, mad cooking skillz, a dog the size of a pit pony, and a general willingness to schlep her nieces to softball games.

She’s also brought a whole range of infectious sayings.  Usually, it’s one of the kids, but we’ve all pretty much picked these up, barring my husband, who just shakes his head:

Kiss my grits — shorthanded over the months to “See those grits?” and then “Griiii-iiiits.”

It’s all gravy — presumably to go with the grits, but I’m afraid to ask.

Easy, killer — hilarious when five-year old Sunny says this to her older sister.

And what did we learn? — yesterday, or so I’m told, Sunny grabbed Janie’s nose and let go just as Janie took a mock swing at her.  Janie punched herself in the face and sat there stunned as her favorite aunt raised an eyebrow and said what came naturally.

Really?  Really?  — yeah, that’s apparently where I picked that up.  I’d wondered . . .

Dude  — more of a reintroduction, really (really?), but she showed us that a complete conversation could be had with a single word:

It’s all good — See “It’s all gravy.”

‘Sup pup? — because it drives Janie crazy, that’s why.

It was Meeeeee!”  (must be said in a high-pitched voice with enthusiastic Wallace*** hands) —- the explanation for this one involves a sports bike group, an SBD,^ and a six-foot tall Hungarian model.  I’m sure you can work out the rest.

Klassy with a Capital K— follows naturally from the previous one, doesn’t it?

Yeah, that one’s my fault — See “Easy Killer”

Ha!  That one wasn’t me! — translation:  hey, I’m  not the one who dropped the frozen peas all over the kitchen floor and said that word in front of ’em.
It’s a small price to pay for her company, I suppose . . . even if she also sends me things like this, instead of images of fairy gardens:

It’s a view of the Milky Way from the surface of Mars.  Really.

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Strings Attached

My husband introduces me to the coolest stuff: cult movies, Metallica, skiing, the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, weightlifting, Wallace and Gromit (by the way), Apocalyptica, marriage, Terry Pratchett—or maybe those last ones were me?

But this one was definitely his:

Thanks, love.

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* Which appears to be the tradition in every herb garden I’ve seen in which he makes an appearance, even if the gardener never planted mint in the first place.  I can’t tell if this is due to reverence or jealousy on the part of the floral world.

** And have also developed a sort of what-the-heck pessimism that looks a lot like optimism if you don’t’ work with the public as extensively as I do.

*** From Wallace and Gromit.  Imagine him saying, “Cheese, Gromit!  We’ll go where there’s cheese!”

^Silent But Deadly

Random Thursday: Illusions, an Earworm, and All the Vu

Random Thursday (ˈrandəm ˈTHərzdā):  the day on which Sarah plunks down all the odd bits and pieces she’s acquired during the week in an effort to avoid writing a real post, the assembly of which usually ends up taking twice as much time as actually sitting down and creating real content.

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First, the Earworm
So you can have something to hum while you peruse the rest . . .
Because misery loves company, that’s why.

And it’s been two days.

(Thanks to Kev, who somehow discovered how much I love They Might be Giants and ran with it)

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Artful Illusions

I know the camera is viewing these gorgeous works of art at just the right angle to make them pop, and I’m not complaining, but I would love to see them from different perspectives and see how that affects them.

(From . . . Lillygrif? I think?)

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Not a Gif, I Swear

From, or possibly for, my husband, who apparently likes to watch my eyes cross . . .

I swear to you, I had to embed this thing last so I could focus on the rest.  Ugh, sorry.

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Vujà Dey:

the strange feeling I’ve never seen this video before.

Weird . . . that feeling’s gone now . . .

(pretty sure I found this one myself—I’m addicted to Vsauce)

It’s no Teddy Bear’s Picnic . . .

I’ve been humming a song for three days. The last song that grabbed me this tightly was Janie’s piano recital piece two years ago.*

But I’m not so sure I mind.

I’m going to blame/thank  Lisa (aka First Reader), whose Music Mondays have introduced entire new species of earworm into my susceptible brain.

There isn’t an official video available for the song, but one can dream:

That bass line . .  . That voice . . .

What have you been humming lately?

(Go ahead and post videos or links, if you want—I’ll check my spam filter)

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*The song in the post title, yeah.  I was whistling it under my breath at work and didn’t even know it until I was told in no uncertain terms that if I didn’t knock it off, the song would be surgically extracted with a staple remover.  It took some serious  R.E.M. intervention to clear it up.

Random Thursday: Llama Llama Llama!

Llama Font. You know you want it.

Click to go to the generator and write secret llama messages—though once you get the hang of it, it’s easy to read.

The T and the Y are particularly adorable, I think. And the I. Okay, yeah, all of it.

Go forth and Llamafy!

(thanks to Janet Reid for this new toy, even though I didn’t decode her message fast enough)

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Janie has discovered Weird Al Yankovic. The world may never be the same–after ten straight repeats of “The Weird Al Show Theme Song,” in the car this morning, I’m pretty sure I won’t be.*

She has it memorized and goes around singing, “But that’s really not important to the story!” at odd intervals. I’m beginning to miss, “Whatever.”

It’s amazing to her that a professional musician messes up songs on purpose.  Music is supposed to be sacrosanct, like books.   “I mean, I know you do it, Mommy, but he’s good.”

Thanks, kid.

My husband’s reaction? “Excellent!” He’s so proud to have helped produced the next generation of Dr. Demento** fans.

‘Course, he doesn’t drive her to school and back.

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Quotes from the Notes

People who talk by the yard and think by the inch should be removed by the foot.

—Croft M. Pentz, The Complete Book of Zingers

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Sheer (shear?) unadulterated cuteness:

To get this kind of effect, I’d need a handful of styling product, a round brush, and a windtunnel—and some Rogaine.

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One off the bucket list:

I finally found a copy of Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen’s version of the Mission Impossible theme song from the first movie. I’ve been looking for this for years, but didn’t want to illegally download it.

In the end, I had to buy a CD with a Bjork song on it.  Bjork.   But it was so worth it.

Yes, Janie comes by her musical obsessions honestly. Why do you ask?

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And to end this odd, little llama-fest, Wally Llama, reluctant guru, and three insistent pilgrims:

The moral of this clip?  Use your smartybrains: don’t meditate without a net.

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*Yes, I was closest to the stereo control and yes, I’m the parent.  But it was either listening to ten reps of this song or twenty minutes of begging, whining, pouting, and aspersions cast upon the quality and quantity of my maternal love.  I’ll take the earworm, thanks.

**Does anyone else miss this guy? Does anyone else remember this guy? I used to stay up past my bedtime and listen to him under my pillow with my huge airport runway style radio headphones.